Society Killed the Teenager
by Fessran
Summary: Gravity Falls one-shot. Mentions of depression, bullying and suicide


The kids in school used to tease us. They used to say we were weirdos, strangers, loners, outsiders. I never felt like an outsider. I knew I was weird, but I was only weird because I wasn't like them. I wasn't like the rest of those girls. Of course there were parts of me that were **like** them. I looked like them. I just didn't act like them. I didn't dress like them. I didn't talk like them.

I think they were scared of me because, somehow, what I was was wrong.

But my brother never made me feel scared or lonely or abused, just somebody's play toy. My brother was there when the girls whispered about me, telling me to just block it out, ignore it, because someday it wouldn't matter. My brother was there when my first real boyfriend, the one who I thought cared, drugged me on what ended up to be our last date, had his way with me and left me in that muddy, frozen ditch. Dipper found me before anyone else, bringing me to the hospital. I'd never seen him so angry, so protective of me. He had been protective before, but never like this, never so ready to give Michael a taste of his own medicine, like he'd given me. My twin had found my ex before the police did, and Michael deserved everything that Dipper did to him. Let's just say that Michael was lying in that ditch, too.

My brother and I were yin and yang. There couldn't be one without the other. There just couldn't be. We were so different, but we were still brother and sister. Twins, and nothing could change that.

I never thought that he would leave me. He had been there through it all. Dipper was my everything, and I was his. He was my crying shoulder, the one I could turn to. Once, I had been Dippers. Now I was alone.

Now Dipper was alone.

I can't describe how I felt when I found him in our room. Even as we aged, at seventeen we still couldn't be separated, even if that separation meant he was only down the hall, a yell away.

I wish… I wish he was still only a few words away.

I was just coming home from school. Dipper had stayed home, saying he was tired and needed to rest up, because at the end of the week we would be having a huge test. I agreed with him. He did need rest. The circles under his eyes had darkened, the skin limp beneath those dark eyes I loved so much. His thick brown hair was messy and unkempt, his skin a shade paler every day. I wasn't worried about him. If Dipper was getting the flu, it was from staying up at night, studying every last second.

Or at least, that's what I thought he'd been doing. Never had I imagined what he could have been planning, all the ripped up paper for his last words to cling on to lying in the wastebasket under his bed.

I left that day to go to school without a second thought. No question in my mind that Dipper would be there when I went back, rested and grinning that lopsided smile that lit my own features up.

But he wasn't. He wasn't there to greet me when I opened the door. The house was eerily silent, save for Dipper's labrador barking at the back door. I opened it up for him and patted his furry black head for a few minutes, but my twin was still nowhere to be found. I frowned. Usually he would be down by now, asking me how my day was, if anybody messed with me, brotherly things like that. I headed upstairs to our room- the room we'd shared since we were little kids- and called his name before opening the door. He didn't answer. I sighed and wondered if he was still asleep. The house seemed to be holding it's breath, waiting for me to open the door and see the horror that would hit me the moment I realized what had gone on in that room.

I turned the knob and stepped inside… and my brain didn't register what was before me.

Rope. A stool. My dead brother.

Not even a sign of a struggle. Just a lifeless teenager, one of the thousands to kill himself.

But he was not one of the thousands to me. He was my brother. The only brother I had. And now he was hanging from a rope, in our bedroom, bone cold and glossy white.

Why did he do it? No one will ever know. The closest I have to guessing is the note he left me in his journal.

I read it over now, my fingers lightly tracing over the quickly scrawled letters. There are tiny holes in the paper where he pressed the pencil so hard that the paper ripped. Smudges of gray lightly outline the words. The paper is crinkled where tears once smeared the yellowing edges of the suicide note.

I still can't believe it. I feel hollow. Like a half of me is missing. And, really, I guess there is.

No more crying on his shoulder. No more splashing each other at the lake. No more listening to him drill me in x plus y equals -5 until I feel like I'm going to die from boredom. No more camp outs in the mountains. No more feeling whole.

No more anything with my brother. Ever.

My head softly whispers to tell me to go to sleep. My heart, leaden and heavy, forces me to reread his letter for the umpteenth time.

Dipper's lab, Pi, shoves a wet nose under my hand, whimpering. I sit up a little straighter and smile, the first smile I have allowed myself to show in weeks. Dipper was the only person I knew… had known… that would name his dog after a math term. I stroke his forehead and get to my feet.

I slip under his faded gray covers that still smell like him, burrowing deep into his pillow, not taking my gaze off of the letter. My dead eyes slowly sink into the words, and I bury myself under them. I've memorized the words, every single letter burned into my mind.

_Dear Mabel,_

_Please don''t blame yourself for what I'm going to do. I've made up my mind and I'm sticking to it. You know me… stubborn as a mule. You said it yourself half a dozen times. Even though I'm going to be gone when you read this, please remember that I love you and I will never, ever forget you. I promise you that you will see me again. I swear._

_I understand if you don't forgive me for what I've done. I know I can never go back. Nothing can justify suicide, as many excuses as I make._

_No matter how far and fast you run, you can't leave some things behind. And those things are what brought me to this point. None of it had to do with you, so do not blame yourself. You'll get through this._

_I love you, Mabes. Never, ever forget that. No matter how much distance separates us, we're still connected. You're my sister and I'm still your brother, dead or alive. Even though I'm technically younger than you(by five minutes), I've always felt like your older brother, making sure you don't get into trouble. Always by your side. But now things are different. I can't be by your side any more. I can't help you face the world because it's time for you to learn how without me holding you back from things that you need to do, to grow._

_Please take care of Mom and Dad for me. And take care of yourself. Promise me that you'll take care of yourself, because that's all I want for you. All I've ever wanted for you._

_When we were kids I made you a promise. Remember that? That I would take care of you, no matter what._

_I can't take care of you any longer, and I'm so, so sorry it had to end like this._

_I love you._

_Your brother_

I set the letter down lightly by your pillow and shakily lift up my fingers, tracing an X over my heart.

_I promise._

**I am so done. I didn't want to write this but I did. And I cried doing it. **


End file.
